Introducing alternative assessment into engineering language education at the Technical University of Madrid

Engineering Institutions across Europe are currently involved in a major process of reform and restructuring as part of the Bologna Process, which stresses the role of competencies and outcomes in curriculum design. In the field of languages, the Council of Europe has developed the Common European Framework of References for Languages (CEFR), which aims to provide a reference framework for describing different qualifications, identifying different language learning objectives and setting out the basis of different achievement standards. Using this framework of language competence levels, our research group, over a three year period, has developed and piloted the Academic and Professional English Language Portfolio (ACPEL) especially designed for Engineering students and professionals. This portfolio was accredited by Language division of the Council of Europe in 2008. This paper will report on an ongoing project dealing with self and peer assessment based on the ACPEL portfolio. The project's aim is threefold: first, to train university language professionals in the use of self and peer assessment through the implementation of the ACPEL portfolio; secondly, to gradually introduce these assessment processes into the engineering language curriculum and finally to monitor and evaluate these two processes at the seven engineering schools.